An infestation of ants nesting within She-Who-Devours’s exoskeleton surrounds her out to radius of 5 feet.
Varian takes out two of the ants, and burns the queen and another as well. It also seems to take care of the infestation around the queen, at least for now.
Farlen tries to follow his lead, but the remaining beads on the necklace are far less potent. Still, he manages to singe a few more ants.
[botting Zaldur...]
Recognizing that the power of his god can damage the undead, hZaldur holds his holy symbol boldly in front of him and channels divine energy.
The ants attack. The queen moves pretty slow, but she casts an acid arrow at Varian that resembles a green glowing flying ant. The others close in on Zaldur and attack.
Using all of your combined efforts, you win the day! Thanks to the prayer and inspiration, everyone hit their target, and destroyed all but the yellow ant. With the loss of its queen, the yellow ant is easily dispatched.
Stuinvolk’s lost treasure cache is buried in the throne-like mound, which you can easily excavated now that the queen is dead. Among them are numerous scholarly finds from the Doorway to the Red Star: a watertight satchel filled with charcoal rubbings, sketches, and notes; stone and flora samples; and small, nonmagical findings. Also among the pile are an animal divining potion and a small ivory ant construct (functioning as a brass spider).
At the trove’s heart is the amberhollow: a rough, fist-sized lump of amber with an empty space inside in the shape of an ant—almost as though a preserved insect had escaped. It has a strong aura of necromancy. While the artifact is responsible for what happened here, the events were merely the result of coincidence and long exposure, so it is safe to transport back to the Pathfinder Society for study.
When She-Who-Devours is killed and the amberhollow is retrieved, the PC picking it up momentarily feels a sort of buzzing rage filling their head, and a crawling feeling upon their skin. This quickly fades into a lingering sense of desperation from whatever is trying to cling on to this world, and then the feelings disappear altogether. Any remaining exoskeletons crumble into dust, as does the corpse of She-Who-Devours.
It is easy enough to make your way out of the anthill without incident. Bujune honors his end of the bargain and lifts the curse on Stuinvolk. The return trip to Eleder is uneventful, especially since it is easier during this leg of the trip to plot a course that keeps the you well away from the dangerous Mzali borders.
Stuinvolk is notably less tense, and with his curse removed, sometimes even segues into something that approaches happy. He still has traumas to work through, of course, as he isn’t “cured” of his past, but this expedition helps to put a lot of his ghosts to rest. He mentions that while he doesn’t see himself doing fieldwork again, he might consider working in a supporting capacity at the lodge level.